The Joy Luck Club 145-184

Summary

The book starts another section called American Translation which talks about the ST. Clairs. Lena St. Clair talks about the freaky prediction powers her mother, Ying-ying St. Clair, has. She says her mother wasn’t able to predict earthquakes or the stock market, but the bad things that affect the family and she knows what causes them. She remembers when her mother predicted her unborn baby would come out dead, and it did. She also predicted that a bank would go bankrupt and lose all its money. A month later, an officer was arrested for embezzlement. She also predicted that something bad would happen to her husband because the flower he had bought he died even though she watered and took care of it. The next year, Mr. St. Clair died of a heart attack. She also remembers that she said “‘you future husband have one pock mark for every rice you not finish’” (Tan 151). Lena starts to eat up everything that is given to her because of fear of having a husband like Arnold, neighborhood bully, who already has pock marks on his face. She later stops eating and becomes anorexic. Linda then marries a man name Harold who owns an architecture firm. Both keep track of all their expenses and keep their bank accounts separate. When Harold decides not to promote his own wife, Lena gets upset and wants to pick a fight. That same night Ying-yings visits them and accidently breaks a vase that was set n a table built by Harold himself. When asked why the vase was put there, Lena says “I knew it would happen” (Tan 165). The book goes back to Waverly Jong. Waverly Jong had previously been married and now has a daughter. She later gets a divorce because of unknown reasons. She meets a new guy named Richie who are planning to get married. When Waverly plans to tell her mother, she takes her to a hair salon, but every time she brings up Richie, Lindo changes the subject or ignores her. Waverly then continues to talk about her chess life. After quitting chess for a while, she decides to start playing again, but her mother doesn’t care. After losing a couple of tournaments, it seems that Waverly has finally lost her talent. She quits playing chess at the age of 14. Waverly and Rich are invited for dinner and Waverly sees this as a way to break the news to everyone that she was engaged. Things didn’t go exactly as planned when Rich does not blend in. First of all, he brought a bottle of French wine which was not appreciated. He made the mistake of drinking two glasses of wine which shows his drunkenness. He ate too much or at too little and even criticized the hostess’ cooking which is the worst thing anyone can do in Chinese culture. Waverly’s plan was a utter failure, but she did not give up. The next day, when Lindo was sleeping Waverly wanted to wake her up and tell her the good news, but instead freezes and starts to weep. Lindo awakens and tells her that she already knew about her engagement with Rich. Lindo tells Waverly she hates Rich but approves of the marriage. She also tells her to postpone the marriage so they can have their honeymoon in china.

Quote

“‘I knew it would happen.’ ‘Then why you don’t stop it?’ asks my mother. And it’s such a simple question” (Tan 165)

Reaction

This is a time i would like to make a prediction of my own. I believe Lena thinks that her marriage with her husband Harold is going to end soon. The vase is a sign that the marriage is going to fall apart and Lena is saying she knew it would happen because she is already think about getting a divorce with Harold. That is what i believe is going to happen.